Any hope some high (hacker's) scores will be erased?

[norbert26]

I never cared about the leaderboards, I only care about the score me and my friends get

i don't care about the LB either. i never even look at them. but i do care about the goals and my local high scores / PB.

 

[invitro]

"I know this score is hacked!"

"Why is that?"

"Because I'm not good enough to get it!"

 

[invitro]

There are some really clear hacked scores like the 300 billion on whirlwind (never mind this was already removed), but it depends a lot on the table on whether you can call it. A quick look through the boards for hacked #1 spots that are clearly impossible shows:

Central Park - Redflame2013 - 99,999
Class of 1812 - mastaLOS - 7,900,126,000
El Dorado - melloone - 175,268,240
TotAN - KingNeptune - 4,308,271,022,354
Gorgar - Rob - 1,010,101,010

It's about a million times more likely that these scores are due to bugs in the table or in Farsight's emulation than that they are hacked. What is the evidence that a hack has occurred? Has someone posted proof?

 

[soundwave106]

"I know this score is hacked!"
"Why is that?"
"Because I'm not good enough to get it!"

Well, there's "good", and then there's "ok, what does a 175 million point El Dorado game / one billion point Gorgar game look like".

Particularly a patterned high score like "1,010,101,010" as you see in Gorgar. Unless the bug's some kind of bizarre overflow error, that looks nicely hand entered.

Also suspicious on most modern tables: any score that does not end in zero. (Matches are by 10s, right?) ToTAN's leader is obviously not valid for that reason and probably also was hand-entered.

It's about a million times more likely that these scores are due to bugs in the table or in Farsight's emulation than that they are hacked. What is the evidence that a hack has occurred? Has someone posted proof?

Sometimes there are bugs which can cause large amounts of scoring (eg ball gets stuck on a bumper etc.), perhaps that explains Central Park and others. But not the ones with very obvious patterns.

 

[SKILL_SHOT]

if you remove them they just come right back, its been done before and there Baaa aaaaack

 

[Crazy Newt]

Sometimes there are bugs which can cause large amounts of scoring (eg ball gets stuck on a bumper etc.), perhaps that explains Central Park and others. But not the ones with very obvious patterns.

The same username that has 99,999 in Central Park also has 50,000,000 exactly in Black Hole. There are probably other odd scores from this username that are no longer listed at the top of the leaderboard now. I think this one is very suspicious and probably not due to any bug.

 

[Slam23]

The top scorer on the HOF leaderboard (iOS) has been "MOO" now for some time with a crazy but certainly feasible 30.000+ points. A few weeks ago out of nowhere there were 3 people in front of him starting with 15.000.000 and some other ridiculous scores. These are certainly fake or misplaced because the cap is exactly 41.000.

 

[JPelter]

It's about a million times more likely that these scores are due to bugs in the table or in Farsight's emulation than that they are hacked. What is the evidence that a hack has occurred? Has someone posted proof?

It's actually a lot more likely they were hacked scores on mobile, since if they were flaws in emulation or table bugs more people would have stumbled on them. The scores I posted and you quoted are not possible to achieve through balls stuck in jets or any similar situation with the possible exception of the central park one, but that one is too exact to be legit.

 

[dada8787]

Really?

 

[Zaphod77]

As for PC piracy, i'm pretty sure you can't get on the leaderboard with it. At least I HOPE you can't get on the leaderboard with it.

 

[dada8787]

As for PC piracy, i'm pretty sure you can't get on the leaderboard with it. At least I HOPE you can't get on the leaderboard with it.

I hope that's true. But remember to be on leaderboards only thing you need is to register with FS, steam does not have anything to do with that registration

 

[invitro]

It's actually a lot more likely they were hacked scores on mobile, since if they were flaws in emulation or table bugs more people would have stumbled on them. The scores I posted and you quoted are not possible to achieve through balls stuck in jets or any similar situation with the possible exception of the central park one, but that one is too exact to be legit.

Well OK, I am assuming that the score-upload process uses encryption as such that uploading a fake score is impossible. Maybe this is not done.

You know, the probability that in a given game, you do something that has never been done before is very close to 1. So I don't buy the stumbling on them argument.

As long as there is some, any kind of reasoning other than "Oh no, there's no way anyone could score that high!", I'm satisfied.

 

[JPelter]

Well OK, I am assuming that the score-upload process uses encryption as such that uploading a fake score is impossible. Maybe this is not done.

You know, the probability that in a given game, you do something that has never been done before is very close to 1. So I don't buy the stumbling on them argument.

As long as there is some, any kind of reasoning other than "Oh no, there's no way anyone could score that high!", I'm satisfied.

Why does there need to be any other reasoning? The scores I posted are impossible to achieve. The reasoning behind why it happened is not important, although if you actually look at the number series for central park and gorgar it's incredibly obvious they've been hand entered by someone instead of achieved by play. And the TotAN score is impossible because of the score ending in a number that is not 0.

 

[dada8787]

lol look at space tractor Fish Tails score 3.171.---.---. He must be very good

 

[JPelter]

lol look at space tractor Fish Tails score 3.171.---.---. He must be very good

Yes very funny. The difference is that it's a new table and I'm the only one who's bothered to use the scoring progression for a significant amount of time so far. There'll be plenty of better scores from others soon. The scores I listed would, within the maximum scoring potential of the table, take from weeks to years of non-stop playing to achieve. Except for central park but I already explained why that one is suspect.

The only reason I even care about this is because we don't have friend leaderboards yet. Hopefully we'll get that sometime soon and then the hackers can do whatever they please on the general boards as far as I'm concerned.

 

[invitro]

Why does there need to be any other reasoning? The scores I posted are impossible to achieve. The reasoning behind why it happened is not important,

I am not saying those scores are not impossible. I am saying more reasoning, evidence, proof is needed to claim that they are the result of hacks, rather than of farsight or table bugs. And for some scores, it has been given, which is great! I'm sorry for any misunderstanding.

 

[netizen]

Despite the disagreement on the legitimacy of certain scores i would still like to see the leaderboards cleared 1-4 times a year as a way to keep them "legit" and to keep the competition aspect of the boards "fresh" for those players who use them as a way to gauge how they are doing.

In arcade actual machines would flush the HSTD data every set number of plays, that number was controllable by the operator, so there's no reason that the leaderboards shouldn't be flushed on a regular basis.

Maybe Farsight could keep an archive of the top X numer of scores for each table, everytime the do a reset, on the Pinballarcade website.

 

[Mayuh]

The top scorer on the HOF leaderboard (iOS) has been "MOO" now for some time with a crazy but certainly feasible 30.000+ points.

MOO did 500 mil on centaur in 20 minutes in the current mobile tournament. Yeah. Not. Set mode +kb for them in all leaderboards and tournaments.
I bet he's on android

 

[netizen]

I bet he's on android.

Yeah, probably. Because there's never been any score hacking on iOS, ever.

 

[Mayuh]

Hehehe, that's what I meant Edited it ^